Fourth news item

Third news item

Check out my Amazon Kindle page. 'The Baby Who Killed People for Money' is now available. An utterly charming child with a unique and lucrative skill. A father with no defence against his daughter's impulses. Would you take your little girl around Europe for a spot of murder tourism? Of course you would. on 2014-06-30

This was in about 1994. I decided to spend the 2-week winter break in Egypt.

In conversations with my colleagues, it emerged that two female PE teachers were also flying to Cairo on that break. We laughed about possible coincidences of meeting in the souk, then I forgot about it.

I got off the plane and went through customs. My colleagues were waiting for me. They were with their friends who worked for the US armed forces. Next day, we got a tour of the missile defences of Cairo. There is a ring of communication stations and missile silos encircling the capital, essentially provided and administered by the US.

The servicemen all kept horses at a stable in Giza. One night we went on a moonlight picnic. We rented camels at the stable and a donkey which was to carry the cool-boxes of food and drink. Riding the camel, I found where the Star Wars people had found the wookie noise and was utterly amazed at how many consecutive steps of a camel could yield a distinct fart. We reached some lonely place with palm trees and set up chairs and initial beers. When the donkey caught up, we had a lot to drink.

The next day, we went to the stables in daylight. One of the military guys said ‘You ridden before, Nigel?’

“Yes,” I said, “But…”

“We’ll get you a wiild one.”

I had been about to say that I had ridden a horse once before, an old, slow one who couldn’t see the point of going anywhere, let alone fast.

I got onto this white horse. It seemed docile. Then another horse began to walk past. My horse took this as a challenge. It took off like a drag racer. The other horse sped up. They screamed off over the dunes. I clamped my thighs tight and lowered myself onto the horse’s neck. It interpreted this as a demand for maximum speed. We reached the top of a dune, the other racehorse drew alongside and they pulled up together in a cloud of sand.

“Nice one,” said the experienced horseman.

As you can see, my trousers had ridden up somewhat by then. Then followed a few hours of Lawrence of Arabia fantasy. We galloped between pyramids and tombs. I hadn’t realised that there were so many pyramids in the area.

This picture is taken from Saqqara, past Abi Sir to Giza. Lots of pyramids.